August 22, 2019

MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS. The Pell verdict: Various shades of justice | National Catholic Reporter

A three-judge panel in Australia has upheld the guilty verdict against Cardinal George Pell. On two of the claims put forward by Pell for overturning the verdict, the three judges were unanimous. On the third claim the key issue of reasonable doubt they divided two to one. Pell is already serving a six-year sentence for abusing a minor.

September 28, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media.

November 25, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Quo vadis - the future of the US-Australian alliance. Part 3.

Summary. Is war in the American DNA?

In his book Dangerous allies, Malcolm Fraser warned us how we can be drawn into US conflicts that are of no immediate concern to us. He warned of dangerous strategic dependence on the US.

The US has a long history of involvement in wars. In Washingtonblog.com in May 2014, and which was carried by the SMH, it showed the number of wars that the US had been involved in since its independence in 1776. The data was well documented. According to this report, the US has been at war 93% of the time since 1776. It added

June 2, 2019

MICHAEL PASCOE. Bridging visas soar by 147 per cent under Coalition (New Daily, 31.05.19)

Other than claims that people smugglers wanted Labor to win, immigration and population issues flew under the radar during the election campaign which may have been fortunate for the government.

March 16, 2020

PAUL COLLINS. COVID-19. A chance to rethink the deeper moral and human issues

We are part of nature and the most important lesson of COVID-19 is that it reminds us of our sheer vulnerability.

September 1, 2019

TONY COADY. What price intimidation?

The recent serious injury to Australias outstanding batsman Steve Smith caused by a ferocious bumper from speedster Jofra Archer in the Second Ashes Test at Lords should have raised concerns about the status of crickets law against intimidation. I discuss why they and similar incidents didnt and why they should.

May 19, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING. The Morrison Governments Economic Policy

The Morrison Government has been returned and it is the Morrison Government which has been returned without the semblance of an economic policy. And this lack of a credible economic policy did not stop Morrison winning an election in which the economy appears to have been the deciding issue.

December 17, 2017

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Alexander wins return to obscurity

So after all that, the bomb did not drop, the world has not ended. John Alexander has been re-elected and Australias champion, Bennelongs champion, will relapse into the obscurity of the backbench whence he came.

August 27, 2019

BOB DEBUS. Must Prisoner Numbers Grow Forever? (an edited version of a lecture given to the Law Society of New South Wales, 22 August)

We can all accept imprisonment as the appropriate response for serious and violent crimes. Nevertheless there is a plethora of studies confirming the common sense conclusion that prison is damaging for individuals at a psychological level, especially in the absence of rehabilitative services; that rates of recidivism, however measured, remain persistently over 50 per cent and up to 75 per cent for Indigenous prisoners; that somewhere around half of prisoners have a mental illness or cognitive impairment; that a high proportion the prison population is received from a very small number of socially disadvantaged postcodes; that the over-imprisonment of Indigenous men, women and children is a continuing national tragedy; and critically, that rates of imprisonment are mostly quite unrelated tothe rate of crime.

April 11, 2018

ABUL RIZVI. Inter-generational inequality, the fertility rate and population ageing.

Australias fertility rate continued its steady decline in 2016-17 and fell to 1.732, close to the level when Peter Costello rang the alarm about low fertility accelerating our rate of population ageing. It is also a level well below that assumed in the 2015 Inter-generational Report (1.9) and in the ABSs 2012 population projections (1.8).

May 19, 2019

MARGARET REYNOLDS. Where do we go now?

Its a sad day for Australian Politics when national reform is rejected and voter priority is reduced to individual benefit .

_But why should we be surprised ?

July 18, 2019

PATTY FAWKNER, SGS. Chittister, Censorship and an Adult Church.

It was decades ago, but I remember the day and the conversation well. It was a Monday morning and I was returning to work at a Catholic adult education organisation after a short break. I was confronted with the news that, during my absence, our newly appointed director had removed copies of Paul Collins book, Papal Power, from the organisations bookstore.

April 15, 2019

JACK WATERFORD. Are management and trustworthiness Morrison's strong points? (Canberra Times 13.4.2019)

We do not get muchsense of Morrison himself from what he has said or done, or what he has told us of why heis there. The ambition has been obvious, but for what and why? Nor is his history as aneconomic manager, Treasurer, or promoter of Australian growth so compelling that it makeshis claim to greater competence (than Labor) or to having better small governmentprinciples a compelling one.

May 2, 2017

Making Housing Affordable Series. JACK DE GROOT. Homelessness the potential to implement a widespread housing first policy

Having a roof over ones head, a place to call home, is a fundamental right for every individual. Until all levels of government collaborate with institutional investors and the not-for-profit sector to provide more affordable housing and accessible services, housing stress and homelessness will remain a blight on Australian society.

May 21, 2019

KIM WINGEREI The Battle of the One Percent

This election proved to be no exception after all politics is a battle over small margins, apathy reigns supreme among voters, the particracy rules and democracy is the loser every time.

August 11, 2019

Let Hong Kong people decide their own fate with China

If we want to see Hong Kong survive the One Country Two System and retain its form of democracy, then we must not interfere with their process. External influence and funding have been reported but these activities only serve to aggravate the crisis to a point of no return where the PLA may appear in the streets of Hong Kong to restore law and order. In the end game, Hong Kong people lose the One Country Two Systems.

May 27, 2019

CHRIS WALLACE. How might Labor win in 2022? The answers can all be found in the lessons of2019. (The Conversation 27.5.2019)

The high tide of analysis concerning the Australian Labor Partys shock 2019 federal election loss has been reached. It looks like so much flotsam and jetsam with the odd big log leadership popularity, Queensland prominent among the debris. Sorting through it, making sense of it, and weighting the factors driving the result really matters. It matters because decisions influencing the outcome of the next federal election will flow from it.

_The learners error is to grasp onto a couple of factors without considering the full suite, weighting them and seeing the connections between them. What does the full suite look like?

April 15, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Integrating the events for the able-bodied and the disabled into the same Commonwealth Games program.

Instead of simply a celebration of perfectly presented superbeings the games have had a texture that has not been there in the past. We have seen inclusive, even human overtones that have transcended the usual pageant of brawn which can and should be admired, but seldom produces the emotion and empathy we have seen in the last week.

May 21, 2019

ROSS GITTINS. Morrison's miracle election may turn out to be the easy bit. (SMH 19.5.2019)

The great risk from Scott Morrisons miraculous victory is that it will lead politicians on both sides to draw conclusions that worsen our politics and our policies. Bill Shorten offered us a chance to change the government and change the nation, and was answered with a firm No Thanks.

August 30, 2017

RICHARD BUTLER. Iran: Trump is demanding fake facts.

President Trump is demanding that US i__ntelligence agencies provide material on which he can base a declaration that Iran is not in compliance with the international agreement to curb its nuclear programme. The material does not exist, so theyll need to be fake facts.

November 26, 2017

FRANCESCA BEDDIE. The way ahead for VET

The Productivity Commissions five-year review, Shifting the Dial, recommends reforms in vocational education and training (VET). These are based on the key premisethat skills formation is one of the central pillars for productivity improvement, even if its benefits are not immediately realised_. That caveat is important: neither skills acquisition nor other knowledge gains are easily quantified, nor are their effects on individuals straightforward. Nevertheless, as the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show, more and more Australians are seeking post-school qualifications. Most do so because they want a job and decent income. Some are_ mesmerised by learning and marvel at the wonder of human endeavour and the natural world. They are not thinking about productivity statistics yet may turn out to be vital assets in guarding our civilisation_._

September 2, 2019

HCTOR ABAD FACIOLINCE. Gifts of Quebradona

The Colombian wilderness has been protected from mining by the 50 years civil war with the FARC guerrillas. No investor was prepared to take the risk of its infostructure being blown up and its personnel assassinated. Now that the civil war is over, mining companies are moving in to bribe local communities with false promises to gain popular support. [more] Simply because there are minerals in the ground does not mean they have to be dug up. Many other things have to be taken into account.

May 30, 2019

JOCELYN CHEY. Civilisations should not clash

The United States relationship with China has been defined by a State Department senior official as a clash of civilisations. Chinas response was given by President Xi Jinping in a speech that stressed the importance of respect for all cultures. Each side however interprets civilisation and culture in a narrow sense that prejudices dialogue. Let us hope that Australia does not fall into the Huntington trap.

August 4, 2015

Arja Keski-Nummi. Half a Step Forward ALP Policy on Refugees and Asylum

There is more to the ALP policy on refugees and asylum than what we heard from the media, focused as it is on factional battles and the language of back- flips on contestable pieces of public policy such as boat turn backs.

As always in such a highly charged area of public policy the devil is in the detail. Labor however gets it about right in focusing on the priority for international engagement and the development of regional and bilateral responses to population displacement. But this policy also hardens the shift in asylum and refugee policy begun when Labor was last in office by maintaining the Offshore Processing Centres (OPCs) , regional resettlement and adopting a policy of boat turn backs.

May 27, 2015

Rob Nicholls. NBN

Fairness, Opportunity and Security Policy series edited by Michael Keating and John Menadue.

The policy rationale behind a national broadband network would appear to be a simple one. The objective would be to part subsidise the construction of a national network that ensures two policy elements would be achieved. The first is a broadband infrastructure that ensures that Australian homes and businesses have broadband at a level that does not limit the national competitiveness compared to its trading partners. The second is to ensure that this broadband service is universal.

September 23, 2018

ROBERT MICKENS. How serious is Pope Francis about eradicating clericalism?

Even after waging war on clericalism there’s little evidence to show that the pope has dramatically changed the attitude of the clericalists in the Church.

August 22, 2019

JAMES ONEILL. Latest Australian Foreign Policy Venture in the Middle East a Symptom of a Much Wider Problem

The announcement by the Prime Minister that Australia would be sending a military force to the Middle East is the latest in a series of foreign policy blunders that fails to recognise Australias foreign policy interests.

June 2, 2019

TONY SMITH. Time to revive the most appalling list.

As a naive teacher of undergraduates I always assumed that research findings about wealth distribution in Australia would be of vital interest to students in any discipline. Understanding the extremes of wealth and poverty and their causes seemed to be essential to understanding individual behaviour and to making collective decisions. Sadly, the trend has always been towards greater social inequality.

April 7, 2019

JOHN DWYER - Will the health initiatives announced last week significantly and sustainably improve health care for Australians?

Given that polls constantly have Australians saying that healthcare is a top issue in every election, expectations are high that our politicians will describe a commitment to those structural reforms so badly needed to improve equity of access to excellent health care that is cost effective. While Labor had made a number of important announcements over the last few months that were not presented in Bill Shortens speech (worrying) the Coalition only announced one major new program that is problematic to say the least.

September 13, 2018

PETER JANSSEN. Wealth gap remains under Thai junta rule.

PM Prayut Chan-ocha vowed to tackle the kingdom’s politicized income inequality but has failed to pass a redistributive land tax that would hit elite holdings

March 11, 2018

SAMANTHA HEPBURN. Why arent Australias environment laws preventing widespread landclearing?

Australia has national environment laws the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act). Yet given the staggering rates of land clearing taking place, resulting in the extinction and endangerment of plants and animals in Australia, these laws are clearly not working.

April 4, 2017

EDITORS, EAST ASIA FORUM. The consequences of the Trump-Xi meeting in Florida.

ANU East Asia Forum has posted a new item, ‘The consequences of the TrumpXi meeting in Florida’

All eyes will be on Florida this week, where US President Donald Trump will ANU host an inaugural summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

July 1, 2019

MUNGO MacCALLUM. The Union movement has never been more important.

Last week Scott Morrison spelled out what he called his economic policy.

But, as usual, it was little more than a series of motherhood slogans about the need for more productivity, less regulation, and a spot of union bashing for good measurenothing new, nothing of real substance, much like the prime minister himself.

June 25, 2018

TOM FAWTHROP. Vietnam Mass Protests Expose Hanois China Dilemma

The huge nationwide protests that rocked Vietnam last week have highlighted Hanois headaches in dealing with China, both as a hostile power in the South China Sea and as a key trading partner and economic investor.

August 30, 2018

KIM WINGEREI. The Political Games of Mediocrity.

John Menadue and Ian McAuley pointed out in A new leader, but no sight of leadership the lack of leadership in the Liberal Party. And its not just the one party, the lack of leadership in Australian politics is firmly rooted in a political system that attracts the mediocre, rewards the conformists and preserves the status quo at the cost of progress.

July 14, 2019

Trumps strategic incoherence on India policy Part 1

The distance from hubris to delusion is short and the Trump administration is bent on covering it in a sprint in its India policy.Diffuse reciprocity_is the diplomatic glue that holds international relationships together._A healthy and long-lasting bilateral relationship rests upon a history of shared interests and values that embody common expectations, reciprocity, and equivalence of benefits across different domains rather than equal benefits in every single sector individually.

September 24, 2019

ANDREW FARRAN. UK Supreme Court thwarts Boris sneaky exit from the EU

The implications of the UK Supreme Courts decision in holding the Boris governments Prorogation of Parliament as unlawful, null and void, have far reaching implications for the Westminster system both in the UK and elsewhere. As for Brexit, the decision has made a UK exit from the EU by 31 October without a deal less likely, and more in accordance with legitimate process.

May 28, 2019

ROBERT FISK. The Evidence we were never meant to see about the Douma Gas Attack. (Counterpunch, 27 May 2019)

We like to take the Big Boys on trust. No longer do we believe in our meretricious little leaders with their easy lies and twitters: the Trumps and Mays and now all the nationalists of Europe. We certainly dont put any credit in Arab dictators.

June 22, 2018

JAMES FERNYHOUGH. This is how the biggest tax cut in history will affect you. (New Daily 21/6/2018)

Australias wealthiest5 per cent of taxpayers are set to receive a $7000 tax cut, after the Turnbull governmentsincome tax bill passed through the Senate with the help of Pauline Hansons One Nation.

January 16, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and Sussan Ley.

The issue is not one of black-letter legality but ethics, if that concept has not withered away completely in the Australian parliament. Explanation, justification and excuse are utterly irrelevant in this case, and finally, many months after the report that was supposed to fix the Bronwyn Bishop problem was meant to be resolved, there is the prospect of movement.

March 12, 2020

Delhi in flames

Last months deadly riots in Delhi were a state-sponsored pogrom. To prevent an uncontrollable mass tragedy that could destabilise the AsiaPacific region, friendly governments must speak out now.

July 3, 2019

PETER RODGERS: Israel-Palestine and the Bahrain conference Jared in wonderland

Whatever happens with Donald Trumps presidency, the future of his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, is assured. A career as writer of romantic fiction is his for the asking.

May 21, 2018

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Liberals have a bloke problem.

Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison were determinedly hitting the hustings last week as they tried to persuade the sceptical that their Enterprise Tax Plan was not only viable, but is actually a good idea.

April 11, 2018

PETER DAY. Tweet others as you would like to be tweeted, Mr Folau.

It is problematic when someone is described as a devout Christian because the term implies a persons bona fides; it implies that a person is a true follower of Christ and the Bible.

Think Wallaby fullback, Israel Folau, who has attracted notoriety thanks to this recent twitter exchange with one of his followers:

What was Gods plan for gay people? tweeted Mike Sephton.

HELL unless they repent of their sins and turn to God, responded the devout Christian.

April 8, 2018

QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Positions vacant: NBN Cos death seat.

After Mike Quigley and Bill Morrow, whos next for NBN Cos CEO death seat?

It can be called an executive death seat because the NBNs business plan to start recouping the cost of the Turnbull governments mis handled $49billion multi-technology mix (MTM) rollout has been shredded.

January 8, 2018

ROGER SCOTT. 1987 and the "Dawkins Revolution".

This is part 2 of my response to an invitation to share my memories linked to the release of Cabinet papers from 1987. Here I will focus on the tertiary education reforms instituted by federal Education Minister John Dawkins.

January 21, 2018

The bomb for Australia? (Part 1)

In this three-part series, I examine the counter-arguments that proponents of Australia obtaining nuclear weapons need to address before the nation contemplates such a move.

January 25, 2018

FRANCESCA BEDDIE. What do we mean by Australia Day?

All the talk about Australia Day what it symbolises, for whom and when we should celebrate prompted me to delve into the history of the date, which has long been contentious. Before we lock in the date, we need to decide what we want our national day to commemorate.

May 30, 2018

PETER JOHNSTONE. Bishops in the headlights.

Catholic bishops throughout the world should regard themselves as on notice following the dramatic offer of resignations by all the bishops of Chile. There are already calls (Paul Collins) for Australian bishops to emulate the Chilean bishops in light of the damning report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, not to mention the recent conviction of an Australian archbishop on concealment charges and the imminent trial of another on sex abuse allegations. In many ways, the Catholic hierarchy is becoming increasingly isolated from the faithful.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal